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“What’s that you have there, Sharon? My, my! What a rare specimen. Did you collect it yourself, Marc?”
    “Merry Christmas, Mrs. McKenzie, and yes, I did. Are you a serious shell collector?”
    She smiled and said, “I guess you could call me a serious shell collector. I’m a marine biologist and specialize in mollusks.”
    “Oh.” He gave his little one-sided shrug and looked apologetic. “Then should I call you Dr. McKenzie?”
    “You should call me Zinnie, unless you’re looking for a fat lip,” she said with a grin. “I came out to tell you that Freda says the gravy is at its peak of perfection, Sharon. There’s nothing modest about Freda, let me say. Do you want Harry to carve at the table or in the kitchen? Would one of you kids go and see if your uncle Rolph is coming out or if he wants his dinner served in there beside your video games.”
    Both children took off down the hall toward the TV room, where Rolph had spent much of the afternoon with them playing with the new games, as happy as any ten-year-old.
    Sharon laid her pretty shell carefully back into its nest of tissue and set the box with her other gifts. “I’d better get back on duty,” she said with a smile for everyone. She didn’t dare meet Marc’s gaze again.
    “If you don’t mind having your talents on display, Harry, I’d love to have you carve at the table. It seems to do so much for the appetite.”
    “You got it, baby doll,” he said. “Shall I uncork the wine now?”
    “Yes, please. Excuse me, won’t you? Dinner will be just a few minutes.”
    As she stood and walked past Marc, she caught a faint whiff of his aftershave and was sure her knees would buckle before she could get safely away. What a mistake it had been to invite the man for dinner! Clearly he had misinterpreted her neighborly gesture as an invitation to repeat their foolishness. But she wouldn’t. Somehow, she would keep up her firm resolve. All she had to do was quit looking at him.
    “How did a marine biologist and a civil engineer manage two such disparate careers?” Marc asked, accepting his well-stocked plate back from Harry.
    “While I was off in the brush building bridges, Zinnie was lounging on beaches, waiting for the waves to wash in a shell or two,” Harry said, earning an indignant look from his wife.
    “What he means to say is that while I was diving into treacherous waters, risking my life and the bends to collect specimens of bivalve mollusks for the advancement of higher learning, he was lolling in hammocks strung between trees, bossing a crew of the real bridge builders.”
    Everyone had turkey on their plates now, and the vegetable dishes had made their rounds. After a brief prayer, Sharon lifted her glass and said, “To Christmas, friends, and family.”
    Everyone responded, lifting their glasses, and then Harry said, “To our hostess.”
    “Our hostess,” came the response, and from somewhere to her left, Sharon distinctly heard the word “beautiful” added to the toast. Against her will, she glanced at Marc, meeting his gaze as he lifted his glass to his lips. To her surprise, he did not drink, but set the glass down again. With a smile, he picked up his fork as she had done.
    “It must have been difficult to be away from your children,” she said quickly to Zinnie, taking the conversation back in the direction it had been going before the toasts.
    “It was, but luckily we’ve always had Freda.”
    “Yes,” said Freda. “While they were off on their little junkets to warm, exotic, and interesting places, I was at home tending their wicked sons, trying to turn them into decent human beings.” She reached across the table and patted Rolph’s hand. “And look what we ended up with!”
    “But just think, Freda, if you hadn’t stayed home and looked after us, we might have grown up in some of those exotic and interesting places and become even more wicked. Think what your sacrifices have meant to the world.”
    “I